married not long after he'd finished a stint in radio, working on the original "lone ranger." >> hi-ho, silver, away! >> narrator: i love this letter from his broadcasting company. >> oh, this is a wonderful letter. read it. >> narrator: "it's with regret that we learn that bill is considering the completion of his course, as he has a fine voice, good vocabulary, and an instantaneous mind." i always loved that phrase, "an instantaneous mind." my dad left broadcasting to become a teacher, but the spoken word remained central to who he was. language was his gift, a gift that began slippinaway in the fall of 1971. >> i was walking with him, and i thought he was holding his hand, just not in an ordinary way. it was... it looked stiff and different. >> narrator: it was the first sign of parkinson's, a condition that not only steals movement, it can rob you of something more. >> he was mostly concerned about his voice, because he did have a good voice, and that deteriorated gradually. toward the end, he really couldn't talk. >> narrator: do you think that was the hardest thing for him? >> ha